SPRINGFIELD — James Suggs Jr. was sentenced to 11 to 13 years in a Massachusetts prison after admitting to a multi-city crime spree including kidnapping a teen, robbing a hotel manager and fleeing from police.

It started at about 3 p.m. on March 24, 2011, when a 16-year-old girl was getting into her car in the Holyoke Mall parking lot.

Suggs, 42, of Florence and formerly of Worcester, came up and opened the door, took the girl’s phone, and told her to give him her wallet and get out of the car, Assistant District Attorney Matthew J. Shea said Friday in Hampden Superior Court.

According to the prosecutor, the girl pleaded with Suggs not to take the car, which was her mother's, and he ordered her to move over to the passenger seat. Suggs, who is a very large man, adjusted the driver's seat back and told the teen he wanted to go to the K Mart plaza in Holyoke.

The girl gave him directions and he drove. “He pulled over to the side. Told her to hop out,” Shea said. She got out, but pleaded again with him not to take her mother’s car.

Suggs said, “Trust me, this is one ride you don’t want to go on,” Shea said. Suggs, after taking the $100 she had in her wallet, told the teen if she told anyone he would get his friends to shoot her.

Suggs then drove to Dick’s Sporting Goods in West Springfield and bought a BB gun that looked much like a real gun, Shea said. He went to the Quality Inn on Route 5 and pointed the gun at the manager, robbing him of $334.

The manager got in touch with police and police found the Ford Explorer on Route 5, where Suggs started to pull over, but then took off. Shea said Suggs was driving 79 miles per hour on Route 5 and traffic had to pull over to avoid him. When he got near the South End bridge, he hit a guard rail and was arrested.

In a statement read to Judge Richard J. Carey by Shea, the Quality Inn manager called the day “a horrifying chapter in my life.”

The teen, who is now in college, said Suggs' actions “changed my life in so many ways.” She said she couldn’t travel alone anywhere and feels severe anxiety.

He said given Suggs' previous criminal record it is likely he will serve the full 13 years. Robinson said Suggs’ actions that day were influenced by alcohol and prescription pain killers.

Suggs pleaded guilty to two counts of unarmed robbery and one count each of kidnapping, armed robbery, carjacking, threat to commit a crime, driving with a suspended license, refusing to identify himself and negligent operation of a motor vehicle.